Rebirth
by adroit-daydreamer
Summary: Jeremy must create a new life for himself.
1. Chapter One Crossing Paths

**Volume 4.07 "Rebirth"**

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**A/N: **D: ! As soon as I uploaded this my friend started reading it!? Gah! As anyone reading this may have guessed, this is my version of Jeremy Greer's 'death' from _Heroes. _

Because he didn't deserve to die.

**Disclaimer: **If Tim Kring ever decides to show up at my door with Mark L. Young in tow and asks to buy my story, YAY! Until then, our works are the same in very few eyes...

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**Chapter One ****"Crossing Paths"**

It ended.

A tear slipped softly down her cheek, then another, and another.

_No._

One seemingly endless ride, one vision, and the fastest sprint of her life later, she silently opened the medical box.

Chucking out one of the ice packs she had stuffed in it, she drew out one small syringe, contained inside a clear sterile packet.

Why was no one here? She'd _seen _them, _why was nobody with him?_

Don't ask, don't _think_.

She stabbed the needle into his heart.

* * *

He woke to the sound of bleeping.

...He... he woke?

_What the-_

_"Go ahead, take your best shot, give me a reason."_

Was it all just a bad dream then? Just a long, horrible nightmare?

He sat up abruptly, his back and the wires biting into his arms pulling at him to stay lying down.

As he watched Mr Bennet quietly speaking into a cell phone through the slanted blinds, he knew it was not.

_No._

Why. _Why_he still here? Why wasn't his body laying in a morgue somewhere, where it could do no more harm?

He lay back down and stared at the ceiling, his face void of any discernible emotion, save for the anguish in his eyes.

* * *

She blinked slowly.

The tears had gone, in fits and bursts, hours ago. Damn them for returning.

She didn't know what happened now. She had never tried anything like this before. No matter what was wrong, and who was dying. It wasn't just that it would be like reaching into a television and pulling the strings of a puppet to how she wanted them, but the other things, too.

The feeling, feeling in her gut that said _you can't win. You can't cheat death, not ever, so don't try. _

The massive complications now. Was she a character now? Was she a shadow character? What would she do about others, now? Other situations like this? And him. Would he live now? _Where _would he live? Would he be happy? Would she meet him?

_No._ It was useless to think such things. Because it truly was like something on TV, or in a film. _Not real. _

At least, not for her.

But... there had been an exception before, many, in fact; but only one that was more than a glance, an accidental brush of the shoulder. She had always been strong enough to force herself to keep walking. And her phone, it was right there. All she had to do was _call him._

_Call Noah... call Noah…_

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"Mr Bennet?"

Noah looked up from the floor he had been staring at, deep in thought, in surprise. He could've sworn the boy curled over on his side had been sound asleep. He couldn't figure how he was _able _to lie on his side, what with the wires attached to various electronic devices around the hospital bed plugged into his arms, not to mention the massive injuries he'd been subjected to. How on earth he'd survived being towed down the back roads of Cainen he didn't know. Especially as despite being deceased at the scene where he had been found, he had -literally- unconsciously frightened the coroner's assistant.

"Yes, Jeremy?" A couple of years ago he would have immediately started spinning out a well-rehearsed story until René was able to wipe the subject's memory. Now, he had time to treat Jeremy like the young man he was, and to let him speak, instead of blankly deceiving him. Dear god he thanked whatever miracle had allowed Jeremy to survive. To add yet another to the long list of lost souls... and he could see good in this boy. This bringer of life and death. He could be... beautiful.

"What am I doing here?" Wondering what emotions Jeremy was going through right now, maybe a mixture of confusion and sorrow, Noah answered,

"You're in hospital Jeremy, you had an accident-"

"_BULLSHIT!_"The shriek only an adolescent boy could manage, full of an adult's anger and a child's desperation.

"Calm down Jeremy, you don't want the cops to hear-"

_"And why is that, huh? Is it because they sent me off to be dragged down the streets?!"_

_"_**Jeremy! Calm. Down!**"

He had been aware, then, of what happened. It was possible that he had fought, but Noah doubted it. After what happened with the mob outside the station, he'd seemed… blank, empty. Defeated. No, Noah reckoned he hadn't put up any resistance, using his ability or otherwise. As Noah watched the kid's body shake with the coughs that were a result of his yelling, he apologized. "I'm sorry, Jeremy. You're right, what happened to you wasn't an accident." Noah looked thoughtfully at the boy as with some difficulty he turned to lie on his back, his jaw clenched and his eyes sad. He wondered if he should mention that most of the town's police force was incapacitated or dead, and that nearly all the cops walking around in the hospital were actually out-of-towners, not the faces that must be in his head right now.

"You didn't answer my question," said Jeremy in a quiet, steely voice. Noah gazed at him for a second, gauging what to say next.

"I take it you mean that you assumed you would die?" He replied cautiously. Jeremy glanced at him and gave an almost imperceptible nod. "Well to all knowledge you _were _dead, were for over 24 hours," with a small sigh, Noah leaned forward in his chair. "A worker at the coroner's office discovered you out of… where you had been placed. She was very shocked when she realized your skin was warm."

That, Noah couldn't figure out. He doubted it was anything to do with Jeremy's ability. From his first encounter with the boy and the little he knew of the Company's information on Romika Tuan, to use the power the person had to be conscious, even if not conscious of what they were doing. Plus neither had shown any signs of healing themselves, through spontaneous regeneration or otherwise. Indeed, the only person he knew of to have ever truly come back from the dead _without _that ability was himself. This made him wonder what had happened to the amount of Claire's blood that the Company had gotten hold of. He knew that foul –or fair, depending on how you looked at it– play was most likely involved, and just wished that he could make any sense of Jeremy's survival.

"I honest to God don't know how you survived, Jeremy, but I've been a part of this lifestyle long enough to know not to look a gift horse in the mouth. At least, when there aren't any foreseeable drawbacks." He gave a small, warm smile.

"What does that mean," Jeremy croaked out in a calmer voice, without looking at Mr Bennet.

"Oh nothing, at least, nothing relevant to your current situation," Noah meant that.

"And what is my 'current situation', Mr Bennet?" Again, thinking before he spoke, Noah explained it as best he could.

"First you must understand that it is now the second day since... your release," he worded carefully, "During the subsequent time you were placed in the Coroner's office."

"If I was believed dead for so long shouldn't I have _been _dead?" Jeremy cut in.

"Let me finish please, Jeremy, I explained that I don't know how you survived." Noah paused. He was glad that the pain medication Jeremy was on was preventing him from staying angry for too long.

"Yesterday, at nearly quarter past twelve, Cainen Police Station was razed to the ground. No one knows how it happened, but it did. Three quarters of the police force were inside at the time, and now over half of them are dead. The three who survived are currently here, in the hospital, all in intensive care. Due to the suspicious nature of the incident, cops from neighbouring areas have stepped in. All they've got to go on are theories about ruptured gas pipes and the possibility of explosives, that someone could have caused it, plus the odd murmur of fault lines and sink holes, but they have no real leads. Of course, people have been saying about you and what they can guess or their minds can manufacture about your ability, but the doctor who is looking after you has verified that you couldn't have caused it due to the near-fatal wounds that caused you to appear dead." Noah waited, gazing at Jeremy, who still refused to look in his direction.

"That still doesn't say anything about my situation, Mr Bennet," he stated in a rough voice, obviously trying to ignore the pain in his throat, "That man... he died. I did it, in front of a lot of people. Sheriff Werner was gonna lock me up for it."

"That's... almost right, Jeremy," Noah slowly breathed in, then out. "For all intents and purposes Tracy and I believe you to be dead. He stopped suddenly, realising what he had forgotten to mention. "We were the ones that found your body." He watched warily as Jeremy finally faced him, his expression relatively blank, but his eyes still full of unabashed misery.

"Where?"

"In the middle of the road, barely thirty meters from the station."

"When."

"About two and a half hours after the sheriff said you were missing, soon after your release." Jeremy raised his head a little and dropped it back down on the thin, white hospital pillow, and exhaled.

Noah reminded himself of what he had been thinking earlier, about how much rest the kid was going to need to recover, and got up out of his chair. "You must still be exhausted, try and get some more sleep. We'll continue this conversation later." Grabbing his jacket from where he had hung it over the arm rest of the other chair in the room and putting it on, he added, "Don't worry Jeremy, I promise it'll be alright."

As he quietly clicked shut the door behind him, Noah couldn't help but remember how his last promise to Jeremy had ended.


	2. Chapter Two Progression

**Chapter 2 "Progression"**

Whatever medication they had him on -because for sure he wasn't as whole as he felt physically- were making Jeremy's head cloudy. He couldn't even try and get angry at Mr Bennet for very long before slipping back into the Grey Area. But then he supposed that that was what happened after you got towed down the streets of your hometown. Jeremy remembered how his dad had fallen from the ladder he was standing on when he was putting up the TV dish, and he'd had to stay in bed for two weeks, and that was just his hip.

Dad....

Actually, he was pretty tired; maybe he _should _get some more sleep.

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She was sitting on a sun-bleached wooden bench to the right of the main entrance, facing the car park when Noah walked out, squinting in the bright sunlight, holding a cup of hospital coffee. Huh. She'd never seen him looking so… normal before. At least, despite the suit that set him apart from the locals around here. She wasn't sure whether he'd recognize her without some prompting; she'd changed her hair colour again since the last time she'd seen him, actually nearly reverted back to her natural shade. It felt… disloyal, when she looked in the mirror in whatever motel or B&B she was staying at and saw someone so totally unlike the girl her parents had known. Besides, bright red hair did tend to make you stand out in a crowd, not a wise thing to do in her situation.

He was still just standing there? No phone calls to make? No errands to run? Geez, was she sure this was the same person?

"Noah." Ah, that did it. He strode over to her and stopped at just the angle so that his shadow fell over her face, allowing her to turn her head slightly and actually look at him for the first time in months. Yep, definitely more average looking. It wasn't bad on him though. His eyes were kinder, less calculating, yet he still looked as if he could take control of the situation at any moment if he wanted or it was needed. You could take the man out of the Company, but you couldn't take the Company's rigorous training out of the man.

"Well, this is quite a surprise," he said dryly.

She patted the seat next to her, and drew her legs up so that her chin rested on her knees. Noah set his coffee at the edge of the bench and sat down. "So what are you doing here? I'm assuming it has something to do with Jeremy; do you know something about what happened to him?" He took a sip of his coffee, turning his head to face her. A breeze rustled through the trees lining the hospital entrance, ruffling her hair, and she pushed the long strands on her right side behind her ear so that she could see him without looking straight in the sun's direction.

"Yes, I know something. I know everything, pretty much." She hesitated for a second." Just not for the reason you think." Noah looked sharply at her.

"What did you do."


	3. Chapter Three Revelations

**Chapter Three "Revelations"**

Noah stared, waiting. The kid sitting beside him could pass for anything between fourteen and nineteen when she wanted, a fact that mirrored her acclimatized maturity coupled with her ability to seem just like any other ordinary, inexperienced teenager. He knew harrying her wouldn't make her say whatever she had to say any faster. As the wind swept some of her hair in front of her face again, Noah took a proper look at her. She looked better than when he'd last seen her… what was it… four months ago? Three? She'd seemed pretty worn out then, and must've been at least a few pounds too skinny for any self-respecting father to like. Now her cheekbones cut across her face in a more natural way, and he was glad to see that the garish hair colors had gone. In fact he was reminded of when he first met her, aged ten; granted, her hair had been a slightly lighter brown, and it hadn't had the auburn tint that it had now, but she was definitely healthier.

The eyes were still years too old though.

"What do you know about what happened to him?" She asked.

"I know that he was taken back into the police station and that less than ten minutes later he was missing. From that I assumed it was a cop that took Jeremy," Noah paused, but when she made no show of answering, he continued, "I know that less than three hours later his body was strewn in the middle of Main Street, and that there's no way he could've survived the injuries he received without some external interference. The coroner didn't have time for a proper examination, but he gave us an educated guess that the cause of death was severe trauma to the head, but could've been a number of other injuries, including a broken neck. He said it was quite difficult to tell just from looking because of the state the body was in. I also know that the next day he was suddenly alive again and a number of his injuries were significantly less serious than they had seemed.

"Your turn."

She sighed.

"I know that Hiro has a brain tumor, that you and Peter went to Jeremy's house to get his ability. I saw everything that happened inside, and I saw him get locked away." She hesitated, almost as if she was wondering whether to mention something or not. "I saw that Jeremy never made it back to his cell, and I watched as he was forced out of some back entrance to the station by the deputy that you spoke to."

"Gill?" Noah broke in. She nodded.

"I saw Gill point a gun to his head as another guy got some chains and wrapped them around Jeremy's legs, still attached to the truck." Noah closed his eyes. Observed speculation was one thing, hearing it for certain was quite another. "I watched him goad Jeremy into killing him, and called him an outcast." Her voice faltered, but when Noah looked all he could see was her eyes staring softly ahead, unseeing. "I watched Jeremy stand there, doing nothing, even as the truck started moving," by the end she was barely whispering, and Noah regarded her with alarm.

"You didn't see-" smell

"It ended after that."

Noah leaned back on the bench and stared at the Styrofoam cup in his hands, any appetite for its contents gone. He dropped it into the trash can next to the seat, from which a faint odor was starting to rise. When he'd suspected that one or more of the cops had been involved with Jeremy's 'death', he'd thought one of the others, the ones that he hadn't spoken to. The unknown factors usually seemed to end up mattering a lot.

Gill… he'd like to wring the guy's neck for what he'd done to Jeremy.

"Did you see what this other person looked like?" He asked. The girl shook her head.

"I do know that he was in the police station when it collapsed, but I didn't see his face very well either time; all I know is that he was around your age." There had been six civilians in the station when it collapsed, Noah knew, and two of them were women - a young girl who had been attacked, and her mother. They had both been killed in the collapse, along with a petty thief who at the time was being held in the glass cell Jeremy had been put in. The thief's brother had also been in the building, but he'd received the least injuries of all the victims. Noah had read about the last two citizens in the town newspaper. One was an elderly man by the name of Jason Tubbs who was apparently a local hero – his family had agreed to have his life support turned off, but the other, a middle aged man, was currently in an induced coma.

"You know, you haven't actually told me why Jeremy's still alive," he said. Noah looked around to make sure that no one was listening in on their conversation, and when he turned back her gaze was fixed ahead again.

"I know." Noah listened as a small breeze blew through the trees nearby, glad for the momentary reprieve from the midday heat. "I stole a vial of Claire's blood from the Company," she said in a faded, blank voice, "I knew it would be useful to have. I decided to transfer it into a syringe a while ago; I didn't know whether just plain swallowing it would do any good."

She paused as he watched her fists clench where they were wrapped around her knees. "I couldn't leave him, Noah. I just couldn't. It didn't feel _right_. He- he wasn't meant to die." She trailed off and faced away to her left.

Noah was… startled, and yet not so. He did not doubt that she was telling the truth - he knew she thought it was near impossible to lie to him and get away with it, which it pretty much was. And his suspicion about Claire's blood had been well founded, apparently. The method made sense to him. What didn't was that it was _her _that had been the person who saved Jeremy.

Noah knew that she had started dotting around the US around a year and a half ago, but apart from the occasional and very useful piece of information she had sent to him through various means since then, he'd barely had any contact with her. Unlike many of the other evolved humans he'd gotten involved with in the past few years, she seemed to have remained under any radars that posed a threat to her. Of course, that had a lot to do with her power.

Cognition. The designated term for the ability to see and hear occurrences almost as if the holder of the ability was actually there. Unlike with Isaac's ability, the girl had only been known to witness events as they happened, not before, or even after. She had also never interpreted what she saw through paintings, drawings or other arts, or if she did, it was through conscious choice after the occurrence took place. It didn't have the obvious advantage of warning that precognition had, but whatever she saw could be relied upon to be accurate, as there weren't circumstances that were able to change it, besides the small possibility of a time-traveler.

A quirk of her ability was that the visions were always of someone connected to her in some way, whether consciously or not. Which explained how she knew so much about Hiro and Peter, their connection being the fact that they were all evolved humans. Of course, it also explained how she knew so much about Noah himself, entangled as he was in the lives of these people. This was how she'd evaded the Company's clutches for so long. That and the fact that she didn't _do _anything that got her noticed. At least, until now. Not that Noah blamed her; he could imagine some of the things that she must have seen, and he knew that in her situation he wouldn't have been able to not take action sooner.

"Well, I guess I should thank you," said Noah, breaking the silence between them, glancing away as an ambulance flew past a little way in front of them, siren blaring. "You saved a young man's life, that's not a bad thing." She only nodded to show that she had even heard him; Noah could see the troubled look in the girl's eyes and from her defensiveness had guessed where her thoughts were.

He stood and looked back down at her. She was a good six inches taller than Claire, but huddled up like that on the bench she looked very small, and very young. "I'm sure he'd like to thank you too, you know." She looked up at him, shock on her face, almost immediately followed by a mask that Noah recognized all too well. After all, he was very apt at wearing one himself. "Come on, what's the worse possible thing that could happen?" He asked, then waited for a few seconds as she stayed where she was. Noah sighed and started back towards the hospital entrance.

Quietly, she got up off the bench and followed him inside.


	4. Chapter Four Interlude

**Chapter 4 "Interlude"**

What was she doing? What the hell was she _thinking? _This was bad! Very, very bad!

_No, let the dice fall where they may._

She was tired of watching.

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Noah couldn't help the small, smug smile that tugged at his lips as he stood in the elevator.

Reverse psychology. Always worked on teenagers, even when they knew you were using it.


	5. Chapter 5 Enter the Jungle

A/N I'm sorry that i haven't continued this fanfic. the only reason i'm posting this chapter is because I already has it typed up when i let it slide so long ago. I was recently cleaning out my email when I saw a reviewer asking me to continue or at least say that I won't, which made me think about posting some more. I promise I'll try to bring it to a satisfactory ending. Here ya go.

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**Chapter Four "Enter the Jungle"**

The doors opened to a generic cream area much like the quietly frantic reception downstairs. They were in the section of the hospital for mid to long term patients suffering from injuries; emergency rooms she'd seen often enough and then of course there were the psychiatric wards… but this was a place she hadn't had much experience with. Everything about this situation was alien.

"He's probably sleeping – he's only just woken up at all; I told him to get some more rest when I left," Noah explained as he led her past a number of windowed rooms that mostly contained patients, with the occasional added visitor.

"Then why bother bringing me up here?" She replied nervously, looking around like a mildly curious teenager. Inside she felt like a child who wanted to wander into a maze but was afraid of getting lost.

"Because I knew you'd disappear if I didn't," Noah said, glancing at the small room that they were passing on their right, before giving her an encouraging smile. It was the last room in the short hallway before a large nurses' station broke the pattern, its door facing the notably more open area.

Listening to her heart thump in her chest, the girl didn't bother mentioning that she would have most likely loitered around for a few days at the least. It wouldn't be the smartest comment to make. Instead she studiously ignored the only room Noah had given any attention to until they rounded the corner and he softly swung open the door and walked in, holding it open for her.

Breathe in, breathe out.

She followed Noah in, shutting the door behind her. He was asleep. Face turned to the left, maybe turned away from the desolately blank wall to the right of the bed, maybe that side was just less painful to rest on. She gazed silently at him, still stood by the door.

Huh. She'd been expecting something… more. She wasn't sure what. It didn't feel terribly wrong to be here anymore, but neither did she feel as if this was _right, _the way people did in books, like a light bulb had flickered on in their heads. It felt… normal. At least, _real. Of course it feels real, idiot, this isn't one of your visions. Get a grip. _

Oh god. He looked so… _broken._ Why did he look so bad? She'd _seen _what an infusion of Claire's blood had done to Noah - he'd been up and running five minutes later. Nathan too, had recovered instantaneously, and his injuries had been more similar to Jeremy's. Maybe it hadn't worked as well because she'd been storing it in fridges for months, transporting it in an insulated box with 'emergency medical kit' scrawled on its lid in black marker.

"Why is he still so…" she gestured helplessly toward the sleeping boy in front of her.

"Your guess is as good as mine," she could feel Noah looking at her and met his gaze, surprised that he didn't appear to be waiting for her to do something… strange. Well, she _had _brought this boy back to life for no discernable reason; it would make sense to be wary. "But I'd guess that because you've had hold of Claire's blood for… how long? Over six months? That some of its regenerative properties have gone. Either that or the extent of his injuries meant that he didn't fully recover like me." She looked sharply back at him from where her eyes had slowly drifted left towards the bed. Noah's mouth twitched, "I've come to expect you to know these things. Besides, how else would you have known it would work?" She wondered if he'd chosen his words specifically so that it left an opening for information. If so, she was going to ignore it, it wasn't like she had anything much to say anyway.

She felt odd. This blank feeling, like the clinging white of cotton wool wrapped in a thick layer around her, it was… strange.

"So, am I allowed to go now?" She asked, without any clear idea of _why _she was saying it. In his subtle way, Noah had given her the best gift she'd received in months – something different from just existing. The neutral kindness of strangers was nothing to the genuine care of a friend, and she considered Noah one of those precious few. She had no intention of wasting this chance.

Noah raised his eyebrows at her and retrieved a folded up newspaper set on the small cupboard beside his chair, most probably meant for storing small personal belongings of Jeremy's.

"It's your choice. All I wanted to do was get you up here and actually see him alive," he said with annoying nonchalance.

She looked at the bed for one long moment and sat down in the chair next to Noah, stubbornly refusing to see the smirk that was no doubt on his face.


End file.
